Monday, 3 September 2012

Girl Porn

Now
there’s an eye catching title! So often
we can hear the word pornography and think “now that’s a man thing”. And you’d be right, although not exclusively!
From whichever angle you look at it, pornography is a slippery slope that very
soon becomes addictive. Men often make
excuses for looking at porn, saying it helps their marriage. Some call it
innocent - just a bit of fun. Apparently some even try to convince us that there
are interesting stories in some of those magazines!! I can’t argue with them as
I’ve never read one and don’t imagine I’ll start now!! However I can see
clearly how the Bible talks of a “husband and wife becoming one flesh”. (Mark
10:7-8) Not two becoming one helped by the images of others. I’m definitely not picking on men because in the
statistics that identifies those who view pornography, women do not lag far
behind men. But what I want to tackle today is a much more socially acceptable
version that us girls tend to fall for.
Now you may laugh when I say this, but before you think I’m blowing
things out of all proportion, just hear me out.

Socially
acceptable ‘girl porn’, masquerades in the form of best selling romance novels
and movies that can so easily leave us with expectations that destroy our
relationships. The ‘heroes and heroines’
in the books or movies do not exist, that is why of course they are called
fiction. Yet once we read or watch
something, we think to ourselves “it would be so nice if my husband was that
tender, sweet, thoughtful, romantic, generous, or physically attractive”. Or for those not married, you can have a
‘potential mate’ list full of characteristics that are unrealistic or
unreasonable. Why do we seek perfection
in our mate when we are happy to accept a lower standard in ourselves? How often do we think “I need to be more like
the heroine in the book or movie”? It is
our natural bent to be selfish and without a doubt these books and movies feed
that bent.

Now, I’m
not bagging all books and movies.
However I do think we need to be so careful what we feed our minds and
how often we feed them. I can still
remember scenes in books or movies I read or saw over 10 years ago. Things
stick in our minds don’t they? We have an uncanny ability to forget where we
put our keys a few moments ago, yet we can remember an intimate scene from a
movie we saw years ago. Surely I’m not
the only one?

Proverbs
4:23 remind us of the importance of guarding our hearts:

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of
life”.

God in His tenderness towards
us gives us guidelines that are very practical and sensitive to our weaknesses.
God cares about your relationships. He knows we can easily lose our way through
having unrealistic expectations. These can ruin a marriage faster than anything
and sadly it’s a trap we often walk into willingly. Unmet, unrealistic
expectations lead to resentment and disrespect, and from there the slippery
slope becomes a mud slid!!! I urge you
ladies to dig your heels in and stop in your tracks.

We choose our
husbands based on all the information we know about them and we willingly make
this choice with the expectation that it will be forever. No one enters marriage thinking “He will be
my first husband’’. Think back now, to why you decided he was the
one. Or for those yet to be married,
look at your list and pick your 3 most important characteristics, the ones you
want to live with forever. When you cut to
the chase, would you prefer a man of integrity, who you could depend upon, or a
man who gave you flowers regularly? Now I’m not saying “don’t bring flowers”,
but think about it. Integrity is the part of character that promotes trust, while
flowers are only a gesture. We need to
choose wisely what we feed our minds, so we build our relationships up to
honour God. No matter if something is socially acceptable, let’s challenge
ourselves, is what we are reading and watching, creating unrealistic
expectations? Porn is not just a guy
problem, it’s our problem too. Let us be exclusive in our marriages, spending
time investing in real relationships rather than fictional ones.